


Journey to the Unknown

by LobotoBear



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Danny Phantom, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crossover, Dimension Travel, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-03-03 01:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13331025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LobotoBear/pseuds/LobotoBear
Summary: After yet another life-changing portal accident, Danny finds himself in a strange timeline where aliens, inhumans, and superheroes exist.





	1. Chapter 1

How the plan had gone this awry, Danny had no idea. Everything had been going smoothly up until that last moment, but of course the universe couldn't let his life be anything but a comedy of errors.

For a cold terrifying second when he had first arrived on the other side of the portal he thought he had landed in some deep dark place in the ghost zone where no one would ever find him, but his eyes soon adjusted to the darkness - glowing brightly to compensate for the lack of ambient light - revealing that he was just in a forest.

The portal seemed to have arrived with him as well. Or rather most of the portal had. Whatever blast occured when he was inside of it did a lot of damage and if he had had any hopes that he could take the portal back to Jazz and the others they were dashed as soon as he saw the wreckage. Guess it was the long way home, then.

At least he was alive - well, as alive as someone who was already half ghost could be.

He wasn't lucky enough to come out of the explosion unscathed, however. The sizable chunk of metal sticking out of his leg was a testament to that. After the initial shock of his crash landing had worn off he had become aware of a burning agony centered around that point. Even as the adrenaline set in and pushed the pain to the back of his mind there remained the disconcerting feeling of something alien wedged inside his flesh. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before.

The rest of his wounds were largely superficial scratches that were already starting to heal and - he groaned as he pulled himself to a sitting position - some deep bruising. All in all not as bad as it could have been. Or at least that's what he kept telling himself.

He knew that in order for his most major wound to heal he would have to remove the piece of metal. The way it remained in his flesh was preventing his accelerated healing from working. It wasn't quite as fast as some comic book characters would have you believe, but it would be enough to prevent him from bleeding to death without stitches, at least. As long as he stayed in his ghost form he would heal in a few days with only some light scarring to show that anything had ever been extruding from his thigh like a vestigial railroad spike.

Okay, maybe he was getting a little delirious - it was time to just bite the bullet.

He had two options, he could pull it out by hand the agonizingly slow way or somehow manage dredge up enough concentration to make it incorporeal and remove it quickly. It was just like pulling off a band-aid. Maybe if he repeated that mantra enough times he would feel less nauseated by the prospect.

When he had first gained the ability to become intangible he had struggled with controlling it. He remembered a strange nightmare during that time where his pants phased to his ankles in front of the whole school and then he fell through the floor and all the way down into the earth's core. You know, those dreams that every teenager has when they eat greasy pizza before bed.

Pizza-induced or not they had the added side-effect of properly motivating him to hone his ability. He had practiced hard by focusing on individual body parts to turn intangible while leaving the rest of himself solid. He soon discovered that with even more finesse he could effect people and objects as well, which had come in handy quite a few times in saving Sam and Tucker from becoming ghost chow.

He wrapped one gloved hand around the metal shard with a light grip, just enough to touch but not enough to cut himself on its sharp edges.

He focused.

And pulled.

Immediately the pain came rushing back, hot and piercing, and he dropped the metal shard to place both hands on the wound. He put pressure on it as best as he could and laid back down on the cold grass with gritted teeth.

It was a long time before he got up again.

Every muscle and bone in his body seemed to protest the sudden movement but they were pulled along for the ride regardless. The deep gash in his leg still bled sluggishly and he felt it trickle down to his ankle. It was still too painful to put any weight on it, so he hovered in place as he tried to figure out his next move.

If he turned back into a human he would just reopen his still healing wound and he didn't want to risk bleeding out while alone in the wilderness. But, if he was going to venture into civilization he would need to find a disguise. Snowy white hair and glowing green eyes weren't exactly low key fashion choices. 

Turning invisible, just in case there were any hunters or campers in the vicinity, he flew himself upward to get a better look at where he was. As he gazed over the great expanse of greenery below him he knew it definitely wasn't Amity Park. The nearest forest this big was in another county entirely. Trees in Amity Park tended to be of the sparse dead-looking variety.

He spotted a road in the distance and decided to follow it, where there were roads there were towns and where there were towns there were phones. He needed to get a hold of somebody as soon as possible and let them know where he was.

His sister had to be worried. For all she knew that portal could have sent him to the Ghost Zone or he could have died in the explosion. He wondered what excuse she would give their parents for his absence. Or if she would use an excuse at all. Maybe this was the final straw and she was going to finally tell them the truth.

The idea of them knowing about what he did, what he was, sent a wave of fear through him that he didn't understand. Logically he hoped - no, knew - his parents loved him and they would accept him no matter what, but something inside him was so afraid that they would only see him as another ghost to be eliminated or studied. 

It had already been a year since he'd gotten these powers and it was getting harder and harder to keep it from them. How many times can a ghost detecting device go off before even the most oblivious people figure it out?

Sometimes he even wanted to tell them himself. When he spent another day being hunted, getting mind-controlled, fighting for his life - sometimes he just wanted to tell them everything. When he was a kid they had been his heroes. The strongest parents a kid could ask for, capable of fighting off any monster that dare dwell under his bed. But, how can he tell them about his double-life when he might be the monster?  

After quite a bit of flying he finally approached a small town. It was Maple Grove, Minnesota according to the cheerful looking welcome sign. At least he was still in the right state - though he couldn't recall ever hearing of a place called Maple Grove. He must really be out in the boonies.

He would have to go into town and either find a payphone, if those even still existed, or find another way to get a hold of someone. This created a problem. If he tried to go around town in his ghost form he would call attention to himself for sure, but he could heal much quicker than if he changed back into a human. Then again, he might call just as much attention as a human if he's bleeding everywhere. At least as a ghost it was already starting to congeal.

Keeping himself invisible he phased into the nearest thrift store. Luckily it wasn't set to open until the morning so he was free to browse for the perfect disguise.

He snagged himself some simple jeans and a hoodie to cover up his suit as well as a beanie to tuck his hair into. A pair of large black sunglasses over his eyes completed the ensemble. He would look like a complete tool but at least no one could look at him and immediately shout, "Ghost!"

He felt kind of guilty for ransacking the owner's establishment so he left a bit of cash on the counter for the cost of the items. He didn't have a lot of money in his wallet to spare, but his parents didn't raise a thief. Unless Jazz had a secret double life as a bank robber to supplement her college fund. He had a secret double life as a ghost, so really it wasn't that far-fetched if you thought about it. Though he would definitely be offended if she hid her double life from him when she already knew about his. Secret identity sharing goes both ways, those were the rules.

As he had already been expecting, his search for a payphone turned up fruitless. Another casualty in the rise of technology gone the way of video rental and cassette tapes. He could probably get a local business to let him use their phone, but there weren't any open so late at night except for the bars - which would certainly not let Danny in. As much as he held out hope for Jack Fenton-like stature in the future he was still one of the shortest boys in his grade and his cheeks had yet to shed that baby fat that old ladies so loved to pinch.

Without a sudden growth spurt or a truly convincing fake I.D. he would have to wait until the morning. It was just as well since as eager as he was to get home as soon as possible his body was demanding rest. Using his powers so much when he was still working to heal all the damage done to him in the explosion sapped away at his energy reserves faster than it normally would.

A tall apartment building with a small garden on top caught his eye and he landed on it carefully. The flowers were bright and cheery even in the moonlight, giving the rooftop a calming and peaceful ambiance. It seemed as good a place as any to wait for the sun to rise.

Laying on the hard concrete wasn't exactly comfortable, especially on the bruised parts of his body, but he felt much safer up there than he would in an alley somewhere.

Thankfully he wasn't too bothered by the cold as his ghost form was much more resistant to it than his human self would have been. But, he still wished he had a blanket just so he wouldn't feel so bare and vulnerable against the open night sky.

The hoodie he'd nabbed was large enough that he could tuck his legs into the body of it, though he winced as the movement pulled at the wound in his thigh. He pulled the hood up to cover himself further.

As he fell asleep he could almost forget that he was all alone in a strange place with no idea when he was going to get home.


	2. Chapter 2

Daisy stood in a plastic tent enclosing the site of an 0-8-4. White-coated scientists milled about, collecting samples and sorting through the debris while agents stood at the entrance of the tent and the surrounding area.

The perimeter had turned up negative for signs of lingering radiation or other biological contaminents, so luckily they were able to forgo the hazmat suits. Daisy was not in the mood to sweat it up in one of those cumbersome things for however many hours it took to examine and transport the 0-8-4 and the mess it had made.

The object of unknown origin in question was a huge structure of metal arcing in to a hexagon-liked structure. It looked like it would have been a perfect circle if not for the gap in the middle where frayed wires spilled out. The material it was made out of seemed terrestrial origin, but looks were often deceiving. The ground surrounding it was scorched and littered in shrapnel - presumably from the explosion that had left it in its ravaged state. They weren't sure yet what the device was or what it did and so they treated with due caution as they prepared it for transport, but Fitz had been glued to it with little fear since they had arrived. Something about it intrigued him and his eyes poured over every inch of it as if he could get it to reveal all of its secrets with nothing but the intensity of his gaze.

"It's strange," she heard Fitz murmur to himself.

"Well, yeah, it's strange. Otherwise we wouldn't be here at five am on a Saturday." Daisy wasn't her best before her morning coffee.

She had been woken up only a few hours ago when her spy program had detected a strange 911 call. She had designed it to pick up on key phrases like "alien invasion" or "oh god they're a monster please come save me" - hoping it would give them more of a heads up when it came to potential 0-8-4's and inhuman incidents. But, mostly she just got woken up in the middle of the night by people who thought "the greys" were coming to abduct them.

This time they had struck gold in a sense. A panicked camper in Minesota had reported a what sounded like a loud explosion and the appearance of an ominous green light in the middle of the wilderness. They claimed it was an alien spacecraft crash landing on earth, so it didn't get taken seriously by the authorities. Even to Daisy it didn't sound like much to go on, but a quick check on the satellite imagery of the location before and after the time of the "explosion" showed some sort of large metallic device appearing from literally nowhere.

It wasn't necessarily a "red alert all hands on deck" sort of situation, but it was enough evidence that it was their sort of thing to get a team together and fly the Quinjet to the site. She had almost been afraid that it was going to be some kid crashing their drone again and she'd get another month of teasing from her so-called friends. Luckily, that wasn't the case because she could only stand someone flying a toy drone at her while yelling "Oh no, Daisy, there's an spaceship coming!" so many times before she brought the roof down on all of their heads.

"It's as if there are entire pieces missing," Fitz elaborated on his previous statement.

"It exploded, it would be weird if there weren't any pieces missing."

"No, I mean - look here," He pointed to a spot where the large curved structure ended in frayed wires and broken metal. "There's clearly meant to be an entire arc, but there's a large bit of it that's just gone."

Daisy still didn't follow and it must have showed in her expression.

"Not gone as in gone from its original place, but gone as in gone." Fitz waved his arms to indicate the space around them. "Where is it? Even if someone else got to the 0-8-4 before it was secured they would have to use a vehicle to transport debris that heavy. But there are no tire tracks here except for our own."

"So, mysteriously appearing broken thing and mysteriously disappearing pieces of the broken thing. You're right, that is especially strange." Not as bad as their usual brand of weirdness, but Daisy knew this was only going to be the tip of the iceburg of weird.

"We need to get it back to the labs as soon as possible - Simmons is going to have a blast with this one."

"You seem like you're already having enough fun for the both of you."

Daisy took another step toward the machine, intending to take a closer look, when she felt something under her heel. She looked down to see that she had stepped on a piece of metal, much like all of the other small shards scattered across the ground. But, when she lifted her boot she noticed something different about this one.

"Hey, Fitz, toss me a pair of those gloves would you?" The scientist in question paused in his fascination with the device to do as she asked. She caught the gloves and pulled them on before carefully lifting the piece of metal.

It was about the size of her palm and made of the same grayish silver material as the machine. One side of it came to a sharp wicked point where a strange green substance coated it on both sides. "You might want to see this, Fitz."

"What is it?" He asked as he came to stand beside her.

"There's something on this one. A kind of weird residue."

He took it from her hands to see for himself, eyes roving over the object with nearly the same enthusiasm as he looked at the machine it came from. "I have a hunch."

She walked with him over to where his travel lab equipment sat on a portable table next to an array of debris collected from the site. He sat the shard carefully on the table and delicately swabbed a bit of the green residue. He then pulled out a dropper bottle that he used to drip a liquid onto the swab.

When the sample immediately turned from an almost electric green to bright pink Fitz seemed to be seconds from punching the air in victory. "I knew it!"

"Knew what? What does pink mean?"

"Something very exciting from a scientific perspective, though not without somewhat disturbing implications."

"That never sounds good."

"This substance is organic in nature. More specifically speaking, it's well, uh," Fitz seemed to hesitate, his sense of victory tempering with the reality of the situation they now found themselves in. "It's blood."

Daisy swallowed. What had began as a simple 0-8-4 extraction had suddenly become much more complicated - and wasn't that just the story of her life?

"Without the proper equipment we won't know for certain whether or not it's, uh, human. I'll go ahead and have this sample rushed back to Simmons so she can begin testing while I finish things up here." He told her as he began placing the metal shard in a small reinforced biohazard bag for safe transport. "If I had to take a guess I would say that whoever this blood belongs to got caught in the blast that destroyed the machine. If this is the only chunk of shrapnel that they got hit with then they got very lucky. But, the length of the blood stain suggests that it was lodged in pretty deep, so they could be severely injured."

"So, if they're dangerous then they're already in a weakened state, but if they're a friendly who just happens to have florescent green blood then their life could be in danger." Daisy sighed, unsure which option she would prefer. "Either way we need to find them."

 

* * *

 

Bill had built the garden for his wife. She had grown up on a farm and had a hard time adjusting to living in their little apartment without a yard to plant things in. Some days she would just look out the window and he knew she was missing the sight of green things. Of growth and life.

They had been forced to sell their family home to keep up with the medical expenses. The little garden had been the only piece of home he had been able to give back to her and he took care of it in her memory after she eventually succumbed to her illness.

Every morning without fail he would rise with the sun and water the verdant oasis she had nurtured. If he found any weeds daring enough to invade the plant's space he would eliminate them with prejudice. It was as if he thought that if he kept that little rooftop garden alive he was keeping her alive.

The only other person who came onto the roof was Jerry who used the space to smoke. His wife had been pushing him to quit recently, so he often had to sneak up there when she was at work. He was a decent enough guy and he never threw his cigarette butts into the soil so Bill didn't mind sharing the space.

Other than that the rooftop was relatively unused except by himself, which is why it startled him so much when he saw a small hooded figure curled up against the parapet.

When he carefully stepped closer and got a better look at their face he realized it was a teenager. None of the tenants had a teenage boy that he was aware of, so he guessed that he was one of Abigail's friends.

Abigail was the only child of the couple who lived in the apartment above him and he often heard the sound of teenage partying when her parents went out of town. Last night had been another such rager, keeping him awake until nearly three in the morning. He would've talked to her parents about it a long time ago if he didn't remember what it was like being that young. She was an otherwise responsible young lady, if she needed to cut loose every once in a while who was he to judge? Though it was definitely still a nuiscance.

The door to the stairwell that lead to the roof had a nasty habit of locking from the other side, which was why the tenants of the building always used a doorstop to keep it open while they were on the roof. Someone who wasn't used to the door wouldn't know about it and Abigail's friend probably came to the roof for fresh air or a smoke only to find himself unable to get back to the party.

When he laid his hand on the boys shoulder he felt how freezing cold he was. It wasn't suprising given how cold it must have been to spend all night up there with no protection from the chilly night air, but it was definitely worrying. Even with the over-sized hoodie he was wearing hypothermia was a very real threat.

"Hey, hey kid!"

Even after shaking his shoulder the teen seemed no closer to waking. His brows drew together in worry as a bleak realization came upon him. He noticed just how pale the boy's skin was, an almost blueish tint to cheeks that should be rosy.

He stared at the slumped figure for a long moment willing his chest to rise and fall. When there was no noticable movement he slowly reached towards the boy's neck and was shocked to feel that his bare skin was even more freezing cold than the rest of him. He felt for a pulse for what seemed like ages, hoping and searching for some sign. But, there was no denying the reality of the situation.

He was dead.


End file.
